Pharma

Kendle CEO to step down; ex-Quintiles exec will fill role

Change is in the air at contract research organization Kendle International (NASDAQ:KNDL), which announced that the company's husband-and-wife co-founders would take on reduced roles.

Change is in the air at contract research organization Kendle International (NASDAQ: KNDL),  which announced that the company’s husband-and-wife co-founders will take on reduced roles.

Candace Kendle is stepping down as CEO, but will remain chairman of the board, according to a statement from Cincinnati-based Kendle. Chief operating officer Stephen Cutler, who joined Kendle in 2009 after 14 years at rival Quintiles, will take over the CEO role on May 1.

Kendle’s other co-founder, Christopher Bergen, will leave his post as chief administrative officer, a position that will be eliminated. He’ll retain his spot on Kendle’s board.

Kendle went outside the firm to hire Cutler’s replacement as COO, hiring a 16-year Quintiles veteran, Jamie Macdonald. Macdonald currently holds the role of head of global project management at Quintiles and he’ll join Kendle on May 1.

Morningstar analyst Lauren Migliore mostly applauded the moves, but expressed surprise that the company promoted its new CEO from within. “After a sustained period of underperformance, we are surprised that the firm did not recruit an outsider as part of its succession plan,” she wrote in a research note.

It’s been a rough go lately for Kendle, which saw earnings plummet 64 percent to $4.6 million through the first nine months of 2010.

Though Kendle’s stock price rose nearly 3 percent yesterday to $12.09, it’s still down 44 percent from its 52-week high.

Kendle is mired in an awkward spot between the biopharmaceutical industry’s first and second tiers — and likely will remain there until it sells itself or makes a big acquisition. A sale seems the more likely outcome, judging from its balance sheet. At the end of the third quarter, Kendle had $17 million in cash on hand, down from $53 million at the end of the year.

Kendle and Bergen co-founded the company in 1981.

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